


they spat me out of their system

by AnonymousPumpkin



Series: Oh Beautiful Town, I Remember You [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Desert Bluffs, Gen, Nongraphic Descriptions of Blood/Gore, Strexcorp, post episode 49
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 11:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10684473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousPumpkin/pseuds/AnonymousPumpkin
Summary: On July 2nd, 2014, the citizens of Desert Bluffs stopped receiving orders. They walked in orderly lines like the cogs of a lovingly crafted and ruthlessly efficient machine. They lined up at their places and they held out their hands and they opened their minds and mouths to the will of Strex and their Smiling God. The entire town stood with wide smiles plastered onto their faces and they waited.And they waited.And they waited.And they waited....The prologue to a Canon Divergence AU focusing on Desert Bluffs post-Strex.





	they spat me out of their system

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prologue to a story I've been planning since Episode 83. I wrote two prologues and couldn't decide which one I liked more, so I'm posting this one separate.
> 
> Title of the series and this fic is from 'Oh Beautiful Town' by IAMX.

On July 2nd, 2014, the citizens of Desert Bluffs stopped receiving orders.

They all woke up at the appointed time despite the fact that there were no alarms to wake them, and they went to their workstations despite the fact that there were no overseers to shepherd them. They moved like the cogs of a well-oiled machine, of a lovingly crafted and _ruthlessly_ efficient machine. They walked in orderly lines down the streets to the shops and factories. Some stopped at food counters. Some stopped at barber shops. Most, though, went to a factory. They lined up at their places and they held out their hands and they opened their minds and mouths to the will of Strex and their Smiling God. The entire town stood with wide smiles plastered onto their faces and they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

The machinery was still. The tools they needed to work—locked up by StrexCorp while the workers rested after the first attempted rebellion in 2012—were not sitting out where they could be easily and quickly accessed. They’d been told the morning before to standby for special instructions following the completion of StrexCorp’s latest expansion, but they’d heard nothing at all since the majority of their overseers had left for Night Vale.

They all noticed the silence. There were no helicopters in the sky. There was no buzz from the bug screens, which were electrified for their safety. Not even the cheerful tinny music that blared nonstop through every speaker—which stopped only to allow Kevin to tell them the news—was playing now. There were no announcements and no instructions, no encouraging threats of termination nor menacing promises of retirement. Not a single Strex worker arrived to tell them what to do. Not a single HR rep came to punish them for standing about doing nothing.

Lunch hour came and no nutrition paste sloshed onto the empty receptacles at their desks and counters. No grinning waiters appeared with trays neatly organized with perfectly proportioned nutrition and carefully controlled medicine.

Hours passed and no direction came.

 _Days_ passed and no direction came.

But still they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

Two days became three became four. People began to drop like flies, weak from hunger and thirst and exhaustion and heat. There was no power, no air conditioning to protect them from the heat that was suddenly much more tangible. But they still dared not move, dared not return to their beds. They just stood waiting and smiling.

A young boy scratched at his collar where it itched and did not immediately fall to the ground in fits of electric shock. Those around him pretended not to notice this disobedience.

Those who dared to look outside noticed that the light seemed…dimmer, somehow. Which was impossible. Nothing ever dimmed or broke the blinding light of their Smiling God. But…the longer they stood there, watching, waiting, the more this impossible truth seemed to be just a truth.

Yes…yes, that awesome power seemed a little bit…less now. The stunning transparency of their world looked a bit faded around the edges. The light that fell upon them no longer burned the very fabric of their minds. Instead it had a much more mundane and _physical_ burn, and those unlucky enough to be caught standing in it felt faint and weak.

And still they waited. They had nothing else to do. There were no homes to return to, no families or friends to spend their idle time with, nor any idle time to spend with friends or family. Their minds comprehended nothing but obedience. They did not think to look away from their jobs because they did not have any room in their minds for thoughts. All was light.

The light was fading. Even the most resistant of them began to notice eventually, when it became impossible to ignore. The familiar transparency of their world began to fall back into something long-forgotten and opaque. The sky outside began to blacken and curl into itself, shrinking rapidly like a piece of paper dropped into a fire. If you looked closely, you could even see the faintly glowing coals that burned high above.

And they waited.

And they waited.

Outside the light kept fading, and as the light faded, shadow crept in and the citizens were afraid. They had not seen shadow in such a very long time, and most of them violently rejected the very idea of a world where such a thing could exist. They pretended not to notice that they suddenly couldn’t see through their neighbors, through their bones and their muscles and their blood. They just smiled.

An old woman got up from her work station. She was working in sales, sitting in front of a blood-splattered desk with stacks of printed paper and four blank computer screens laid out before her. She placed her hands on the sticky wood and she pushed herself slowly up. She looked around at the grim faces around her and she stopped smiling. When no one leapt from the bright corners of the room to accost her, she turned on her heel and she walked slowly away from her station. She walked down the hall and she walked down the few flights of stairs to the ground floor. She walked across the gore-splattered lobby. She pushed open the now un-electrified door and she stepped outside.

She was the only one out in the streets. If she remained precisely where she was and did not turn her head or eyes, she could believe that she was the only one in the world.

It was still.

It was silent.

It was dark.

Well…not quite dark.

High above her shone a light. It was not the consuming and ravenous light she knew. It had no will and no purpose. It was a cool and beautiful light that held no promise and no expectation. It was a light she had known and loved in her youth, in a time so long ago that she could remember it only in impressions tinged with bittersweet longing and regret. She lifted her hand and watched in dissociated amazement as her arm cast a shadow on the ground and on her own solid form. It was when she saw the shadows that she knew.

Strex was not coming back.

The Smiling God was not coming back.

Josephine Oshiro lowered her arm and she lifted her eyes. The others hadn’t come out yet. They hadn’t realized. They didn’t _know_.

She could tell them. She could. She could run—well, she could _walk_ —from door to door and throw them all open and shout as loud as she could, and tell the entire town. She could grab people she’d known once, in a time not so very long ago that she wasn’t allowed to remember, and she could shake them and laugh a laugh that was full of joy and darkness and completely devoid of purpose. She could sing and dance and holler and howl at the moon that shone so beautiful down on this, her broken and desolate town.

She didn’t do any of that. She just stood there, on her own two feet, looking up at the light—no. Not at the light. At the spaces in between.

The others would come. They would realize.

And until then…

Until then, she could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> *climbs to top of a mountain and rips off shirt* I'M STILL BITTER ABOUT DESERT BLUFFS
> 
> Episode 83 destroyed my crops, ruined my skin, and gave me the flu.


End file.
